Outreach and Engagement Awards

The Outreach and Engagement Awards (formerly Science Communication Awards) are intended to reward outreach work carried out by new scientists and established researchers to inform, enthuse and engage the public.

Awards

The competition is open to all researchers working in any sector of UK biosciences, from universities, institutes or industry. There are two categories of award:

New Researcher Prize: £750

The New Researcher Award is open to bioscience researchers currently reading for a Masters/PhD or in the first year of a post-doctoral position.

Established Researcher Prize: £1500

The Established Researcher Award is open to bioscience researchers who are beyond the first stages of their research career, as defined in the New Researcher category. The Society is looking for researchers who communicate their own work well, and who represent their own field strongly in the science communication world. Please note: Professional science communicators, paid for science communication work beyond their role as a scientist, are not eligible to apply.

Eligibility

The Society is looking for an applicant with commitment to outreach over a period of time. This could involve a wide range of activities, from talks and written articles to hands-on demonstrations or art displays. The audiences can vary from school children to patients to the general public, but should not include a scientific audience above school level.

Overall the judges will be looking for a programme of activities that can be demonstrated to have brought good quality science to non-academic audiences in engaging ways that are likely to foster a lasting interest in the biosciences. Judges will be marking specifically on scientific content, influence and recognition, innovation, evaluation and feedback, impact on society and working with underserved sectors.

Previous Society of Biology Outreach and Engagement Award winners are not eligible to enter again.

Applications

The 2018 awards will open for applications on 12th March 2018.

Contact

Judges

Dr Steve Cross (Chair)

Steve is a Wellcome Trust Engagement Fellow and the founder of the academic comedy night Bright Club and the science communication cabaret Science Showoff. He was originally a human geneticist, before jumping into science communication and then spending the last few years as head of public engagement at UCL.

Dr Liz Granger

Liz is a previous winner of the New Researcher Science Communication Award. Having completed a PhD in cell biology, Liz recently began a role at UCLan establishing a new branch of the Ri Young Scientist Centre, which will provide hands-on practical science workshops for school students in the North West.

Rosie Waldron

Rosie is engagement manager at the British Science Association, where she manages the British Science Festival and other national programmes. Prior to this she spent several years developing and delivering public engagement events at the Natural History Museum and Imperial College London. Rosie also spent a year working in science television production and has an academic background in neuroscience and a Masters in science communication.

Aimee Eckert

Aimee is a cell biology PhD student at the University of Sussex. When not researching cell division in cancer, Aimee splits her remaining time between organising PubhD Brighton and performing science-based entertainment. She loves to entice science out of the ivory tower and into the local gin bar where new styles of science communication can be created, mixing different flavours of performance to create Brighton's most experimental cabaret: Dr. Jiggs Bowson's Charming Science Friends.

We use cookies: to perform functions such as login and account management; and to track usage with Google analytics to improve our website. To find out more about the cookies we use and how to delete them, see our privacy policy. I accept cookies from this site.